Exphotographer Snaps Again

MY FRIEND CAREN’S username on Instagram, an iPhone photo-sharing app, is ‘exphotographer’ — by which I guess she means she no longer plies the trade for money. But she is still very much a photographer, of whose eye I am in awe. She and I can stand side by side and take a photo of the same subject. Hers will not only be clearer and better composed, it will be, in some ineffable way, more interesting. “It’s about the light,” she says. Well, she must have some special light.

If you have an iPhone and an Instagram account, search for “exphotographer” and look at Caren’s images. Some are black-and-whites dating back to her art-school days in Philadelphia, re-shot with the iPhone; others were taken moments before posting. Many are quotidian things transformed through the lens of her unique vision. The composition above is a case in point, beautiful enough to make me feel less nervous about Tuesday.